Poem by Brenda Bunting

A Lady Yells Up and Down Minnesota Avenue I'm Hungry!
 
What does hunger look like?
I follow the steps of quiet children.
Their footprints weren't light or dancing.
Bare feet drag to an abyss of undernourishment.
Such big stomachs and tear-less crying,
This is what we have seen on television.
Staring at a world away we are deceived. 
By the perception of distance--
Hunger does not notice day or night.
It is the same a gray edge of pain unbroken.
The ailing wake slow and anguished,
To the daily promise of a starving nightmare,
Every sense of enjoyment is dull to life.
We work and drive and live in circles of luxury. 
The hungry world is not our fault.
The street corner looks are drug induced.
I can waste more money with fake charities.
We demand the freedom of un-involvement.
Justifying our apathy with cynicism, 
I indict myself more than I do you.
Emancipated hands of poverty's daughters,
Dig into earth looking for a heartbeat,
Of sustenance of nutrition gold,
To follow a garden line,
To a life line of full happiness,
With every kind of fruit and vegetable,
The rich soil of giving could offer up.
But the ground is tight and hard.
What is meat but imagination abounding.
The breath is a death stench most foul.
Babies are aware that they are dying.
They instinctively suckle at the air.
Wide eyes blinking, "Feed us!"
I ignore the lady yelling. I think she looks high.

(c) Brenda Bunting

Brenda Bunting is a socially conscious Poet, Author, Spoken Word Artist and Workshop Facilitator. She is the 2019 winner of the UUCS Jazz Poetry Slam in Sterling, VA and was most recently published in, “The Daily Abuse” Collection 2018. ​

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